Well, you did butcher one word there. It’s inspiration, not motivation. That’s a key difference, but the interest is in asking that big, hard question like, “What’s the real reason why you exercise?” and not stopping at what the surface answer comes back at.
My belief is that a lot of people walking around today have been socially injected to answer that question very quickly. I don’t think a lot of people actually take time to say, “No, really. What’s the real reason why?”
There’s a couple reasons why. When you do come to the truth of why you do exercise, a lot of it seems immoral or lower order or seems like it’s folly. Therefore, you’re scared to death of nihilism.
Secondly, you’re scared shitless that you’ve been hoodwinked. You’re like, “I can’t be wrong on this. I do this because I want to be healthy.” I was like, [laughs] “Maybe you are.” You’re like, “No, I’m not.” I was like, “What’s wrong with you being wrong about your own thoughts on doing this for being…?”
Those are the two major stopping points when people ask that question. I find it fascinating, which of course leads back to the previous thing I talked about, the “Aha” moments and the growth of the fitness industry and seeing so many people share ornaments.
This is fitness. When you actually look at what the definition is of success and what the definition is of healthy, it doesn’t look like anything that’s being sold, nothing like it. We know why. The consistent long-term plan for health and fitness is not sexy, therefore you can’t sell it, or you can’t broadcast it.
You can’t gain attention from it. I’m just voicing some of the things that come up when you start asking those questions. “What’s the real reason?” I could go on and on. There’s numerous thoughts that come from that.
I think if anything listeners could get is, just sit back and ask that question. Keep asking it every couple of weeks. Try to figure out why you do it. To get to the end, lands people safely, [laughs] so we don’t freak people out. That’s why I giggle. Right now, if you can’t see me, I’m giggling.
It’s like it’s folly. Exercise participation today is a diversion tactic away from other things that you could be doing. That’s what you’ll end up seeing, but that is humorous. That’s the beautiful human experiment. It’s like we don’t need to move, but we’ve been told that we need to do these things.
Immediately, when you make those statements, most people’s brains get cracked. They’re like, “I can’t. No.” “I see the global gym. I see fitness. I see all these people doing things. We must have to do it.” I was like, “You don’t have to do it. Why are you doing it?”
For strongman to win a competition, that makes sense. He probably want to do those things. To lift weights over your head and to beat other people, makes sense if you want to do those things. To win a CrossFit competition, you can’t walk in from walking in the sun lifting rocks. You got to do it. To live healthily, you start to get, “Yeah…”
What’s the context then of what you need to do for physical challenges that provides enough resilience to ward off bad shit, cognitively and physically, that allows you to express yourself for your whole life. When you land on that after that big, arduous eight-year journey of asking, “Why do I exercise?” you’ll just giggle.
It will feel like, “Listen, I’m just bench pressing because I can do it.” [laughs] “Oh, I thought it was for your PECS and hypertrophy and losing weight.” I was like, “No, not at all.” [laughs] It is because it’s there. I didn’t have bench press 300 years ago, but it’s right there so, “Hey, why not? [laughs] I can do it.” “Look at this, I can do a row.” “Look at this, I can squat.”
David, I hope you got from there. You could see how people get scared by going down that road of intentions because they don’t want to deal with the fact that it’s a diversion tactic. It’s folly. There’s no actual function to that exercise.